Last month we witnessed a very encouraging example of regional cooperation involving ICID, CNCID and KCID when the Young Professionals (YPs) Training Program hosted by CNCID and supported by KCID was held in Beijing, China. ICID Resource Persons, including our current president, ex-presidents, myself and our executive director, delivered the training sessions. A total of 19 YPs from 14 countries participated and benefitted from the interactions with experienced irrigation and drainage experts. ICID through its Technical Support Unit (TSU) aims to provide such capacity development services so that developing countries share more knowledge and expertise with each other. The training was followed by a very interesting workshop by CNCID.

The experience was not much different during the 8th Asian Regional Conference held last week in Kathmandu, Nepal, prior to which another YP training program was organized by NENCID with several international resource persons for 25 YPs from Asian countries. Most of the YPs also got an opportunity to attend the regional conference and benefit from the discussions and knowledge sharing. The regional conference with the participation of high-level decision makers and technical experts demonstrated the potential of regional and international cooperation and collaboration in learning from each other. I hope the momentum gained, thus so far, does not diminish and such fruitful, high-impact activities take place more often.

ICID has also stepped up its interactions with several international research and development bodies, and I am sure that it will benefit all our NCs with cutting-edge knowledge and technological developments in our sector. We are working very closely with CSIRO-Australia to explore ways of making newly developed software tools available to developing countries of all regions for better planning and assessment of development interventions in the Irrigation and Drainage sector.

A gentle reminder to my colleagues that August is approaching fast when we will have our 69th IEC Meeting and International Conference in Canada and I look forward to meeting many of you there to share ideas on how we can work together better, be more impactful and result-oriented leading to sustainable development of all.

As I sign off, I would like to take this opportunity to remind all that on 24th June we will celebrate the 69th ICID Foundation Day and have already started preparations for that. You will hear more about it in the next month’s News Update. I urge all NCs to also organize various events to highlight our unique sector that touches all lives.

With the success-ful conclusion of the 8th World Water Forum last month in Brasilia, Brazil, there is a sense of new energy among the water sector stakeholders to focus more on field level interventions and change, and that’s the way it should be. The sheer diversity of participants during the Forum helped to deliberate the multi-disciplinary aspects of water. ICID was well represented by its members, partners, office bearers, stakeholders among others, and I am certain the Forum recommendations will reverberate in ICID activities in future.

This year, ICID commenced recognition of World Water System Heritage (WSH) program as a joint member initiative with the World Water Council (WWC). The awards recognize the water administration and distribution systems performing over historical periods. Three systems- two from Japan and one from Iran- were recognized at the global level. It is necessary for us to learn from such systems so that increasing tensions over resource allocation can somewhat be eased.

Interestingly, this year the World Water Day theme was ‘Nature-based solutions’ (NbS) and it drew our attention to the natural systems and mechanisms available around us that address some of our most serious water-related problems such as water scarcity and pollution.

This issue of News Update covers many events wherein ICID participated or was represented by our National Committees. The World Water System Heritage program, collaboratively organized by World Water Council and ICID, saw the maiden recognition of three heritage systems in an exclusive event during the inaugural ceremony of WWF8. ICID also took part in many technical sessions, meetings and side events, including WASAG and Water Accounting initiative. Finally, the White Paper on Water Accounting was officially published and released at a side event. ICID has made a significant contribution to this White Paper.

Last month also witnessed celebrations all over the world to celebrate ‘International Women’s Day’ on 8th March. It reminds us all the significant role that women, both urban and rural, are playing in agriculture, water and sanitation, and rural development.
They are also taking large strides in various fields as well-deserved professionals.

Recognizing the important role that young professionals play in analysing and solving major problems facing the humankind, ICID has been regularly conducting webinars and e-discussions through its open online platform – IYPeF (ICID Young Professionals e-Forum). Accordingly, face-to-face trainings are also organized for selected professionals to coincide with ICID annual events, which makes it possible for young professionals to interact among themselves and with international experts for better knowledge exchange. Currently, CNCID and NENCID are conducting such training for the YPs.

As I sign off, let me take this opportunity to remind all our NCs that ‘International Mother Earth Day’ will be observed on 22nd April. Let’s use the occasion to unite and shape the future of 21st century environmentalism and bring the message to people that they have a collective responsibility to protect the environment and to balance the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations.

Unfortunately, this message has to begin with a sad note that our Vice President Hon. Dr. Brane Ivan Maticic is no more among us. However, we can be sure that his tireless contributions to the professional field of irrigation and drainage through ICID over several years will continue to guide us towards a path of sustainable water use in agriculture, a very prominent overarching theme in the upcoming World Water Forum 8 (WWF8) at Brasilia, Brazil this month.

ICID members and partners are all geared up for an active participation in various technical and thematic sessions of WWF8. Frequent incidences of water scarcity are raising awareness not only about an urgent need for water accounting for better management of this finite and increasingly unpredictable resource in both spatial and temporal dimensions, but also on several other related issues such as role of technology for efficiency, resource conservation, multi-stakeholder dialogues, and so on. Cape Town scare has already rung the alarming bells and just glancing through digital media confirms that Cape Town may not be alone. Let us hope WWF8 raises the pitch and results in more action at the ground globally.

I would again like to highlight the special WWC-ICID session on Water Systems Heritage in which the three recognized systems will be given Citation Plaques and Certificates. Such systems reflect ancient water wisdom around us and there are uncountable examples around the world that we would like to recognize and share among all the stakeholders. So, I urge all the NCs to look around and nominate these hidden treasures of water knowledge.

On a parting note, all I would like to say is that both ICID President and myself eagerly look forward to meeting as many of you as possible in Brazil.

It gives me great pleasure in informing you that ICID is gearing up for the first major international event of 2018. The 8th edition of the World Water Forum (WWF8) which will take place from 18-23 March in Brasilia, Brazil. The Forum will hold more than 200 sessions and debates about themes related to water. ICID President, myself and several delegations of our member national committees will take part in this important event to highlight the issues related to irrigation and drainage.

One of the highlight of WWF8 is ICID and WWC will jointly recognize three World Water Systems of historical significance as World Water Systems Heritage (WSH). The systems have been selected by an international panel of judges from a total of eight nominations received from various countries. Citation plaques and certificates will be presented in an exclusive session on World Water Systems. Water systems have a long and almost indefinite life, if they are maintained and manged well. Keeping in mind our limited working life spans, the well adopted management systems make impact across multiple generations of the beneficiaries. WSH celebrates this permanence of thoughts and concepts. I urge all National Committees (NCs) to send in nominations for this recognition of time-tested water governance systems as well as for WatSave Awards and Historical Irrigation Structures (HIS).

Being a member of the International Steering Committee of WASAG – The Global Framework on Water Scarcity in Agriculture – ICID will participate in an FAO-led session on water scarcity in agriculture and discuss ways to ensure future food security in an uncertain climate. WASAG serves as a collaborative platform for all in supporting countries and stakeholders in their commitments and plans related to the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

Water management forms the core of sustenance. Being a dynamic resource, the management is a continuous exercise. Simultaneously, being a temporally random resource, management policies have to evolve almost constantly. We need to keep on building our knowledge base in order to leverage our past experiences into forming proactive policies for future sustainability. Therefore, ICID continues to play a key role through landmark events on water with the help of our NCs and Working Groups. We would like to expand our reach further and further.

ICID recognizes the centrality of the role of the Young Professionals in our activities as well as water sector, and accordingly ICID Young Professionals e-Forum (IYPeF) has kick started the year 2018 with a wide range of discussions on technical issues related to water management in agriculture. The outcomes of these deliberations will be made available through various ICID communication outlets.

We are also witnessing an improved cooperation among the various NCs which is a good sign. On the parting note, I am happy to report that Vietnam and Georgia have become the newest members of ICID family. More the merrier!

As I make my debut to the world of Irrigation and Drainage as Secretary General of ICID, I convey my best wishes to all for the New Year 2018. I will strive towards a better informed and more developed community of irrigation and drainage professionals in years to come. Let us begin our journey together.

Water, a life-critical finite resource, is being consumed increasingly with various competing demands. At the same time irrigation being the largest consumer of water is coming under increasing pressure with other sectors demanding a greater consumption from its existing share.

A holistic management strategy is needed for the purpose. While this is the case with the countries with substantial urban and industrial base, many countries are struggling with making enough resources available for bringing up their societies to kickstart the socio-economic development process.

The irrigation development has to address the twin issues of managing, maintaining and improving their irrigation facilities in an enhanced manner for generating inter-sectoral adjustments and the development of new facilities providing cover to virgin areas which have seen little or no engineered irrigation due to lack of development.

Managing and improving irrigation infrastructure is an ongoing process requiring specific solutions suiting the problems encountered. Large number of innovative technologies and solutions are available in the specific areas of application which may overlap or leave out some space when a new approach/solution is needed to be developed.

Modern management technologies with remote data collection and asset management are making great strides in this direction and irrigation professionals need to leverage them to their best advantage.

New areas coming under irrigation need a lot of capacity building for absorption of new concepts in their psyche to migrate from a water insecure area to one with greater security. The leap from no technology to a sophisticated state- of-the-art solution becomes quite great at times often leading to the collapse of a newly implemented system. Breaking up of the solution in a set of easily absorbable steps is an exercise which has to be planned with great care keeping the status of society.

Irrigation systems not only bring prosperity but also new power structures and inter-linkages amongst the members of the beneficiary community. The social change also needs to be managed smoothly for achieving the desired results of a well and evenly developed society.

Thus, as I look at the vast challenges and scope available for the work in the sector at the inception of my tenure at ICID, the cooperation of the irrigation and drainage community in the working of the organization becomes more valuable.

I am happy to inform you the launch of the e-Discussion on 'Use of Groundwater for Sustainable Agriculture' on our ICID Young Professional e-Forum (IYPeF). Members are requested to encourage young professionals to participate actively in these discussions . Also a good number of virtual meetings as planned during the 68th IEC are also in pipeline.

New initiatives taken in the field of knowledge management and capacity building are close to our hearts towards making our contribution to the development of the sector and thereby a more equitable and stable water availability regime. Our detailed thoughts on plans for future of the sector have been collated in our ICID Vision 2030 document. I would urge the community to study them for adopting the appropriate goals.